How to Report an Employer for Not Paying Overtime

To report an employer for not paying overtime, file a free complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division online or by phone at 1-866-487-9243, or file with your state labor agency. Before you do, confirm you’re legally entitled to overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act, gather your pay stubs and personal time records, and move quickly: federal claims must generally be filed within two years of each unpaid paycheck, or three years if the violation was willful.¹

Confirm You’re Actually Owed Overtime

The FLSA sorts workers into non-exempt (owed overtime) and exempt (not owed). If you’re non-exempt, your employer owes you at least one and a half times your regular hourly rate for every hour past 40 in a single workweek. Each workweek stands on its own; your employer cannot average hours across two or more weeks to erase overtime from a heavy one.²

To be properly exempt, an employee must clear two hurdles. They must be paid on a salary basis of at least $684 per week ($35,568 per year), and their primary duties must genuinely involve executive, administrative, or professional work. Certain computer professionals and outside salespeople also qualify.³ A salary and a manager-sounding title alone don’t make you exempt. If your day-to-day work doesn’t fit those categories, you may be misclassified and still owed overtime.

Your regular rate also matters. Overtime is calculated on your regular rate, not just your base hourly wage. Non-discretionary bonuses, commissions, and production incentives — anything you earn by hitting specific targets rather than by your employer’s whim — get folded into that rate before the 1.5x multiplier applies.⁴ If overtime on your pay stub was calculated off your base rate only, that’s a violation worth reporting.

Common Violations That Support a Claim

Many overtime violations don’t look like violations at first. You may have a claim if your employer is doing any of the following:

Classifying you as exempt when your actual duties aren’t executive, administrative, or professional.
Classifying you as an independent contractor while controlling when, where, and how you work.⁵
Requiring off-the-clock work before you clock in, after you clock out, or during an unpaid lunch. All time you’re required to be on duty or allowed to work counts as hours worked.
Averaging your hours across workweeks to zero out overtime from a heavy week.

Gather Your Evidence First

A strong complaint starts with documentation. Before you contact anyone, pull together what you can:

Pay stubs, which show the rate of pay and hours your employer says you worked. Gaps between those hours and the hours you actually worked are the core of most claims.
Your own time records — a notebook, calendar, or spreadsheet showing your real start and end times. Contemporaneous records carry weight even when informal.
Employment documents such as your offer letter, employment agreement, or handbook, which often state your classification and overtime policy.
Emails, text messages, or chat logs where your employer asks you to work extra hours or discusses your schedule.

You’ll also need your employer’s legal name and address, which may differ from the trade name and usually appears on your W-2 or pay stubs.

File a Complaint with the Wage and Hour Division

The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is the federal agency that investigates unpaid overtime, and filing a complaint is free. You can submit it online through the DOL’s web portal or by calling 1-866-487-9243. You don’t need an attorney.⁶

Your complaint is confidential. The WHD will not disclose your name or the nature of your complaint to your employer unless it becomes necessary to pursue the claim and you give permission. Investigators can also open unannounced investigations to observe operations firsthand.⁷

If the investigation confirms a violation, the DOL can recover your back wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages and assess civil money penalties against your employer. Most cases resolve administratively, but the agency will litigate when it needs to.

State Labor Agencies as a Parallel Option

Many states run their own labor departments that enforce wage and hour laws independently. State laws sometimes cover workers who fall outside the FLSA or set higher salary thresholds for the exemption. Search for your state’s department of labor or wage and hour division and file by mail, online, or in person. Filing with the state doesn’t block you from also filing with the WHD, and pursuing both routes at once is common.

Watch the Filing Deadline

Under federal law you have two years from the date of each violation to file. If the violation was willful — the employer knew they were breaking the law or showed reckless disregard for it — the window extends to three years.¹ The clock runs on a rolling basis, so every unpaid paycheck starts its own countdown. Waiting doesn’t just weaken your case; it permanently cuts off recovery for the oldest pay periods. State deadlines can be longer, so a state claim may reach back further than a federal one.

Your Right to File a Private Lawsuit

You don’t have to wait for the DOL. The FLSA lets you sue your employer directly in federal or state court to recover unpaid overtime. If you win, your employer owes the full amount of unpaid overtime plus an equal amount as liquidated damages, effectively doubling the recovery. The court is also required to order your employer to pay your reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs.⁸

That fee-shifting rule is why many employment attorneys take overtime cases on contingency, with no upfront cost to you. You can also bring a collective action on behalf of yourself and similarly situated coworkers.

One boundary matters here: if the Secretary of Labor files suit on your behalf, your right to bring your own private lawsuit for the same violations ends. If you’re weighing both paths, talk to an attorney early, before the DOL route forecloses the private one.

Retaliation Is Illegal

The FLSA makes it illegal for your employer to fire, demote, cut your hours, or otherwise punish you for filing an overtime complaint or participating in an investigation.⁹ The protection covers both written and oral complaints, including raising the issue verbally with a supervisor.

Retaliation can be subtle. A shift to an undesirable schedule, sudden negative reviews, or being frozen out of assignments can all qualify if the timing ties them to your complaint. Keep a written record of any change in how you’re treated after filing. If retaliation happens, you can file a separate WHD complaint or sue. Remedies include reinstatement, lost wages, and liquidated damages equal to those lost wages.¹⁰

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 255 – Statute of Limitations
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Handy Reference Guide to the Fair Labor Standards Act
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 17A: Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 56C: Bonuses Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Misclassification of Employees as Independent Contractors Under the FLSA
6
U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Frequently Asked Questions: Complaints and the Investigation Process
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 US Code 215 – Prohibited Acts
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 77A: Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act